Under the Surface (20 page)

Sorenson sat back and dropped her pen on the legal pad brimming with notes. “It's a great cover,” she said. “A business owned by a woman, targeting women, and highly visible on every social networking site. Bars don't take in or deliver a measurable product, so the money's hard to track.”

“I'm practically perfect in every way,” Eve said lightly. “Do you really think he meant to kill me last night?”

Matt shook his head. “Too amateurish. He meant to scare you. When a guy who's come up in the Strykers decides he wants you dead, he'll do it himself, and he'll do it in one of those empty warehouses by the river, where no one will find the body until it starts to stink. I think he planned on you being the same as you were in high school. Alienated from your family. Maybe he asked around before he approached you, heard about how your family felt about Eye Candy, maybe even heard you were estranged for a while. He thought you'd be alone, afraid, easy to persuade. He wants to own you.”

“I am not for sale,” Eve said precisely.

“Then he'll steal you,” Matt said bluntly, trying to impress on her exactly how dangerous this was. “When I show up he thinks suddenly you've got someone in your life who doesn't care if you're a cocktail waitress or a bar owner, someone you can depend on.”

“You,” she said.

“Me,” he agreed, then stopped, because talking about the soft, secret thing growing between them in front of Hawthorn and Sorenson made his stomach clench.

She knew it too. After another one of those unreadable looks through her lashes, she peered into the cashew chicken container, set it aside, and said, “What, exactly, are you proposing?”

Hawthorn spoke up. “We give Murphy what he wants. We pull Detective Dorchester out, and put someone else in undercover to protect you. Or we wire up the bar and set up a surveillance operation.”

“Absolutely not,” Eve said. “I'm not giving up that level of privacy.”

“Natalie could take a long vacation,” Sorenson mused. “I could step in.”

“Nat's never taken more than a weekend off,” Eve said doubtfully. “Her whole family lives in Lancaster, both sides, four generations.”

“You could fire her.”

Eve scoffed. “She's my best friend. If I fire her, everyone on the East Side will be talking about it. Look, if the point is for this to look totally natural, that's not going to work. We're working under the assumption Lyle is pissed that I'm dating ‘Chad,'” she said.

“And?” Matt asked.

“If I thought someone shot at me because of my choice in men, the last thing I'd do is fire him or break up with him, and everyone on the East Side knows it,” Eve said. “I'd get the biggest, gaudiest engagement ring I could find and set a wedding date.”

Matt's heart stopped dead in his chest. Could he put on the gold band sitting in his desk drawer for a fake marriage? To Eve?

Jesus Christ. Caleb Webber would do his level best to slice off Matt's balls and feed them to rabid, flea-ridden dogs if Matt's crash-entry into Eve's life resulted in a sham marriage.

She gave him a glittery little smile. “Okay, maybe not a wedding date, but I wouldn't break it off. Webbers don't take intimidation well. We've had bricks thrown through the front window of the house and the church. When I was in the fifth grade Dad tossed two kids out of an after-school program. They stole our dog from the backyard, killed her, and left her body on the front porch. In honor of Goldie, we do not knuckle under to intimidation tactics. Lyle knows this. If I dump Chad because I'm spooked, he's going to think I've lost my nerve, and I'm not a good front for him.”

“Maybe Chad got spooked and ditched you,” Sorenson said dispassionately.

Fuck that, because in this case, Chad Henderson was basically Matt Dorchester, and Matt didn't spook. “If we keep going with this, then I stay undercover,” Matt said.

“As my bartender or as my boyfriend?” Eve asked.

“Both,” he said firmly, and hoped like hell he was doing the right thing.

“Detective Dorchester,” Hawthorn began.

“Sir, something about this has Lyle spooked. Maybe he's getting pressure from higher up the food chain. We can't leave her protected only by surveillance gear. Keeping me there full-time is a hell of a lot cheaper than detailing six officers round the clock to watch the bar.”

Hawthorn leveled a look at Matt that had Sorenson tilting back in her chair to examine the ceiling and a tiny grin dancing around Eve's mouth. “Your concern for the department's budget,” he said, stressing the last word, “is duly noted, Detective. If Eve consents to your continued presence in her life, I agree.”

Judging by the expression on Eve's face, that was by no means a given. She picked up the takeout carton again, dug through it for a tiny piece of chicken, considered it, then put the carton back on the table. She sat in silence for a while, shuffling the photos together and aligning the edges, the careful, precise movements buying time to think things through. Pale pink stole into her cheeks, then she said, “Congratulations,
Chad
. You've got your job back.”

Her tone walked a fine line between playful and mocking, and he knew that no matter how wholeheartedly Eve committed to making a dent in the East Side's drug trade, getting manipulated into it didn't sit well.

After what happened earlier in the afternoon, getting called “Chad” didn't sit well with him.

“You fired him?” Sorenson asked.

“Right after he called 911,” she said lightly.

A broad grin spread across Sorenson's face, marking the moment Eve went from
other
to
ally
. Even Hawthorn looked mildly amused as he said, “Thanks, Eve.”

They could laugh at his expense, but this was no joke. His father's words echoed in his ears.
Emotion shows weakness, Matthew. Control your only strength, your only friend. You do the right thing for the people who trust and depend on you.

On the East Side bad things happened to people who cooperated with the police. Especially bad, brutal things happened to women. He was now Eve's first line of defense against Lyle Murphy or the Strykers or whoever was after her.

Back to the bag. And cold showers.

“Okay,” Hawthorn said, gathering up the photographs and closing his laptop. “For the time being, Matt stays undercover at Eye Candy. We wait for the next move and take it from there.”

She stood to the side as Matt closed and locked the door, double-checking the locks and chain more than was actually necessary. When he turned around, he found her leaning against the wall not twelve inches from him. Her feet were bare, and wavy strands escaped from her ponytail, gently brushing her flushed cheeks. The skin of her throat and collarbone gleamed with a thin film of moisture, and he flashed back to watching pink infuse her face and neck as she tipped over the edge into orgasm.

He had to get new AC in this house.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Uh-oh,” Eve said. “I've seen that look before.”

“What look?” he replied. He'd learned to control his face from a very early age but controlling anything around Eve wasn't going well.

“It's Sunday night. We're here until Tuesday, alone in your house, with nothing to do except stay out of sight. It's the perfect setup for thirty-six hours of adult fun with chocolate syrup and whipped cream and whatever else you have at hand, but that look that says as much as you want to do this, you're not going to,” she said dryly. “I'm very familiar with that look.”

Shoulders square, hands loose at his sides, he looked her right in the eye. “You're right. I'm not,” he said.

She absently tugged her hair loose from the rubber band, gently massaging her scalp and sending the now-dry strands tumbling into her face. “So you want to start pretending we don't send up sparks every time we look at each other?” she asked as she tamed the glimmering black mass and secured it with the rubber band.

For the first time in their relationship the circumstances were clearly defined, objectives identified. Protect her while they took down Murphy. Keep her physically and emotionally whole, so when this was over, she could walk away unscathed. People, especially women, got attached when they had sex. Denying what he wanted was best for her.

But he couldn't lie to her. When the job called for half-truths and misdirection, he'd done it; but not anymore, not with her cooperation, not with her in his house. “No,” he said quietly. “That's not what I want.”

“That's why you should do it. You want to.”

“What about after?” he said as he shoved his keys into his pocket.

“Matt, I'm not thinking more than about thirty seconds ahead right now.”

“One of us should.”

She laughed, and again the sound was somewhere between playful and mocking. “Very mature of you,” she said. “Very protective. But you're thinking too far ahead. Up until 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning we were the textbook example of sudden, explosive sexual chemistry. If we get very proper and formal with each other, it's going to look odd. To make this thing work we need to act like we can't get enough of each other, like the sex just gets better and better every time we do it, and we're doing it every chance we get.”

In other words, like they were a new couple falling madly, totally, completely in love.

Her words spawned a whole medley of full-color, tantalizing images in his brain—sex in her bed, in the office, in the storeroom, all the time in the world to do everything he imagined and come up with a dozen new ideas—and the ache under his ribs intensified. His pulse sped up, sending adrenaline into his veins. With the sharpened senses came awareness. He felt vulnerable. Eve's crackling, live-wire energy exposed bruised places he'd kept hidden. He
felt,
and sex would only make it worse.

His father's shadowbox of medals and ribbons caught his eye, triggering his father's voice in his memory.
Emotions create weakness. Weakness puts you and your team at risk.
“So we keep acting.” As he spoke he brushed past her, down the hallway and into his bedroom.

“We weren't acting,” she pointed out, calm and logical.

He ignored her as best he could when she stood just ten feet away, shucking the jeans and polo for gray cotton shorts and his running shoes. When he emerged, she still stood at the end of the hallway, arms folded under her breasts, her face mildly amused and mildly inquisitive. “Time for a workout?”

He nodded. “Help yourself to whatever,” he said with a glance at the shelving unit holding his outdated CD collection and a few books.

“Do you have speakers I can connect my iPod to?”

“No. Sorry.”

“No stereo either.”

That wasn't a question. “We moved it to make room for the Xbox.” But the CDs still lined the shelves of the entertainment center.

“In Luke's room there's a picture of you holding an iPod.”

His fingers tightened on his hips as memories flooded back, opening the Christmas package, seeing the little device awkwardly bubble-wrapped and taped to within an inch of its life, knowing Luke would have saved the money he earned mowing lawns and shoveling sidewalks for months to buy him the iPod so he'd have the music he missed so desperately. It was, hands down, the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.

She was seeing things, and worse, making connections.

“That was a long time ago. Luke got it for me for Christmas during my first tour.” His voice was emotionless, too much so. He forced out a breath, relaxed his hands. Sometimes you had to react a little to hide a lot.

“What happened to it?” Unlike his voice, hers was quiet, soft, and full of gentle curiosity.

He talked to the frame around Luke's door. “When my CO told me my parents were dead and Luke was paralyzed, I had ten minutes to sprint three quarters of a mile to the airstrip and catch the first transport to Germany. I left everything behind.” He'd been wearing the sweat-stained, gritty cammies when he walked through Luke's hospital room door thirty-six hours later, covered in Iraqi dust and sand. “A buddy packed up my stuff and shipped it to me, but he couldn't find the iPod. Someone stole it out of my locker.” He shrugged. “Guy needed it more than I did. Everyone has their music on their phones these days.”

“But not you,” she observed.

“I've been busy.” When she didn't comment on this pathetic excuse, he turned to go into the bedroom that held the gym.

“Matt.”

He stopped. “Yeah.”

“I'll still be here when you come back.”

No problem, because the workout was going to fix this. It always had, until he met Eve. He straddled the treadmill and punched up a hill course, waiting for the belt to pick up speed before he dropped into the workout. In seconds he ran at a pace that would have left her far behind if she hadn't been down the hall, in his living room.

Chest heaving, pulse well into the red zone, he drove himself through an eight-mile hill course in less than an hour but the emptiness never came. Fine. Going at the speed bag never failed. His fists fell into the regular five-count rhythm easily enough, but his brain would not shut down. He knew the heavy bag workout was useless before he even began, but drove punch after punch into the slowly twisting cylinder until he skidded on the sweat spattered on the wood flooring. With a low curse he tore off the gloves, fisted his hands on his hips, and bent his head.

This is not going to go away. For the foreseeable future she is in your house, in your life, and this is not going away. Face it, and deal.

Sweat dripped steadily from his jaw and temple to the floor. He grabbed a towel and dried off, then wiped the floor and walked down the hall to confront temptation. She was stretched out on the sofa, reading one of the few books shoved into the shelf next to his outdated CD collection. She'd turned on the lamp on the end table against the deepening summer twilight, and didn't look up from the book. In the kitchen he ran water into a glass and drank. When he had two full glasses in him, she spoke.